Any help on a Win 490 trigger?

cattle buyer

Ive been having loads of fun shooting bulk .22s in a 490 with a 3x9 simmons scope,accuracy and groups are very nice at 25 & 50 yards,my eyes are going south so I put a Leupold 4.5x14 40mm AO with the varmint ret.WOW! Now I can tell the only thing keeping 5 out of the x ring is the trigger pull,lotta creep before the break, Is there any help this damn thing feels about 7-10 lbs. thanks

nmyers

I bought a new 290, & sent it back to Winchester while it was under warranty for the same problem. (I would have esimated my trigger pull at 20 lbs.) Winchester refused to modify it; they claimed that it was a safety issue.

But, when you see how these trigger groups were made, it becomes clearer. They used stampings, castings, & heavy springs; there is really no way that they can be improved short of major gunsmithing, or replacement with a different design.

That was the last new Winchester I ever bought.

Neal

cherrypicker

I have both; a Win 290 and 490 and I totally agree that the trigger pull is horrendous. I can believe Winchester responded in the way they did becuse the mechanisms they ended up putting into that generation and genre of firearm was to say the at the least, a very cheap way to equip the item with a basic functional trigger mechanism. It was not desinged for the shooter or for longevity. Winchester started to use alloys and new designs. Designs driven by economics, not functionality. The designs sure did not come from the old design teams that brought to marklet guns like the Model 70, Model 12 and other designs that are collectors pieces today. The 490 is nice to look at and does resemble the older brothers of the Model 100 and Model 88 but that is where the resemblence ceases. The trigger design is a P.O.S. Nothing can be done short of redesign. I don't take mine completely apart for fear of breaking off a tab of white metal. I'm not a gunsmith but I do know my way around this firearm - there's just no safe way to make it a smooth trigger travel with minimal trigger creep.
If anyone has discovered a way to make it smooth please let me know. I'd sure love to make this gun a good shooter.